Category Archives: Brunswick

Matthew Glass, psychologist and former university administrator, moved to North Carolina after the death of his wife and daughter. He’s opened up a cafe and a bookstore in the coastal town of Calabash, and there he connects with a diverse group of people: Tomeka who cooks at the cafe; Tizzy who runs the bookstore; Micki, a college-age Korean orphan whom Matthew intends to adopt; and Christopher Fry, a retiree who befriends Matthew.

As this novel opens, Christopher has just died, in what appears to be an accident. When Christopher’s long-estranged daughter arrives to make funeral plans, Matthew is in for a few surprises: Christopher has left Matthew his house and his dog, and the circumstances of Christopher’s death don’t square with the cautious and precise man that Matthew knew. As Matthew spends time at his new house he gets a better sense of Christopher’s professional achievements and his compassion, and he uncovers some puzzling things: a stash of the local community newspaper with strange marking on some of the papers and books on the animal-human bond. With Micki’s help, Matthew follows the clues in Christoper’s things, but those clues lead to cruelty, corruption, and murder, not the treasure that Micki expected.

This is the second book in the Matthew Glass Mysteries. The first book was set in Maine.

Erin is a young woman on the run from an abusive husband. When she arrives in Southport, North Carolina she adopts the name Katie and begins to make a new life for herself. Her job as a waitress doesn’t pay much, but people are kind and she has a nice place to live. Katie hopes that by keeping to herself she will avoid discovery and entanglements that would necessitate revealing who she is. But the heart has a mind of its own. Katie becomes close to widower and his two young children, falling in love with him and the children. Katie knows that her husband Kevin, a police officer in Massachusetts, will not let her go and that his possessiveness and violence could endanger not just Katie but Alex and his children. The reader knows this too since the author takes us inside Kevin’s mind as he makes his way to Katie and a climatic encounter of desperation and violence.

Nineteen years have passed since Lindsey’s first summer in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, when she was introduced to the mysterious mailbox on a deserted stretch of beach. Her beau at the time, Campbell, described the folklore behind it and encouraged her to write a letter to the Kindred Spirit who guards the mailbox. Over the years, Lindsey has dutifully left an account of the year in the mailbox, often describing her life in Charlotte, crumbling marriage, and sadness over losing Campbell.

Now she is back in Sunset Beach with her children, just days after finalizing her divorce. Although Lindsey has hoped over the past year that her husband would come back to her, she is trying to accept her new beginning. She runs into Campbell, and her emotions from nearly two decades ago return. Even though Lindsey felt betrayed by the way things ended in 1986, she still feels a connection to him. However, Lindsey discovers that Campbell violated her trust by reading her letters in the mailbox over the years. When she decides that she cannot lose him again, Lindsey realizes she and Campbell have always been each other’s Kindred Spirit.

Mobile Acres is a quiet, well-maintained trailer park in Shallotte, North Carolina. Although the stories of how each neighbor got to the mobile home community varies, they are all connected by their choice to live in their tight-knit village. Everyone looks out for each other, no matter the circumstances and with little thought to their fellow resident’s background. When an unthinkable crime takes place at Mobile Acres, the neighbors band together to give each other comfort and to restore their sense of safety. Joyce Jacobs presents trailer park life in a way that is rare, highlighting the sense of community that is often overlooked.

Robin has heard the mean things that have been said about trailer parks. She has seen the “snotty expressions” people have when they find out that she lives in one. But the tweenager is very happy in her trailer park, Mobile Acres. She appreciates the sense of community that she and her mother share with her neighbors, and she loves living so close to her best friend, Tawana. When Gloria, an “Army brat” moves to their Shallotte, North Carolina, trailer park, the three quickly become pals, calling themselves the Trailer Park Brats. Over the course of the summer, Robin and Tawana introduce Gloria to the neighborhood and enjoy a few adventures, including alerting a friend to a fire at his trailer, spying on a loner neighbor who they are convinced is a vampire, and witnessing a drug dealer trying to sell marijuana to a friend. Through their fun and their trials, the Trailer Park Brats learn life lessons and form a deep bond. By the time school is about to start, the three decide that their summer at Mobile Acres has been their best yet.

The death of a loved one results in grief, and the length and magnitude of this response varies for every person. Deep depression sets in for Lucy James after the death of her husband, and her friends become very concerned about her well-being. After a few months of mourning, they suggest that she get out of the house and confront what her life will be like without Charlie. Spending more time with, Dottie, her English Setter, seashell collecting, committees, after-school tutoring, and running for the school board are some of the projects that Lucy undertakes to appease her friends’ concern. As she involves herself in more community activities, Lucy finds that she is able to live without the constant cloud of sorrow hanging over her. In fact, she identifies signs – the sound of his voice or the presence of a red rose – that Charlie is still with her. She needs the comfort of his spirit when the ugliness of the election and opposition to her work with a slave reburial site is compounded by her violent rape and the sexual abuse of one of her tutoring students. As Lucy faces her future without Charlie, she finds her purpose in opening her heart and in serving others.

Edwards’ first book, The Ghosts of Turtle Nest, introduced readers to Lucy James.

Matt and Lindy are two retirees living a quiet life on the coast in Brunswick County. Matt is happy to catch and cook blue crabs, listen to jazz, and shoot the breeze with the neighbors. Lindy prefers a more active life, and she is in town most days working as a volunteer translator at the health clinic and other county offices. Their quiet life is changed when Matt discovers the body of a Mexican immigrant in the water near his crab pots. The young man has been murdered in what appears to be a professional hit. Another murder follows. Although the murders appear to have been done by a local policeman, the police chief thinks that they were the work of someone else, possibly an outsider. Matt and Lindy find confirmation of that hunch when a desperate immigrant that Lindy knows through her translating work takes refuge with Matt and Lindy. Soon they are all in the gun sight of the local boss of a Mexican crime syndicate in this novel that wraps the subject of illegal immigration into a fast-paced thriller.

The fledgling settlement at the mouth of the Cape Fear is menaced by pirates in this novel set in the early 1700s. Blackbeard, working out of his base on Ocracoke Island, hinders the overseas trade that Huguenot refugee Robert Fontaine hopes will bring prosperity to Carolina coast. Fontaine’s daughter’s courtship and marriage to the enterprising David Moray add a romantic element to the novel. The action moves back and forth between Europe and points in the New World.

On a resort island off the coast of Wilmington, four friends gather to renew the ties they had as college students twenty years earlier. Mel, Sara, Annie, and Lola plan to sunbathe, laugh, and party, but their conversations develop a darker tone. Each woman has made her share of mistakes, and each lives with some sorrow. Annie and Mel unload secrets that have burden them since college, but it is Lola who finds a more dramatic way to turn her life around.

By June 1864, Wilmington was the only open Confederate port on the eastern seaboard. Cargo brought into the port allowed the Confederacy to fight on. Blockade running and Sherman’s March to the Sea changed Wilmington, bringing to the city thousands of desperate refugees, wheeler-dealers, and dangerous men. This novel contains good scenes of the blockade runner Atlantis negotiating the waters at Cape Fear, eluding Union ships, and loading up in Nassau, but the heart of the story is what happens in Wilmington. It is a book of adventure, war, and romance, with scenes of betrayal and violence.